Messages

1

General Chat / Re: GPL issues with ML post processing software

« on: September 17, 2014, 12:14:50 AM »

There's something profoundly ironic about a group of individuals, whose very work piggybacks upon other people's engineering and coding efforts and skirts around a very grey legal area open to subjective interpretation, complaining about others doing the same to them.   

2

General Chat / Re: GPL issues with ML post processing software

« on: September 15, 2014, 11:32:54 AM »

It seems like there's an awful lot of "cut off your nose to spite the face" spirit going around here.

I get it, you guys are hurt because not everybody is willing to give away their coding work for free. The truth of the matter is that, when it comes to OS X, RAWMagic is the only feasible solution for people who don't want to deal with command-line or unreliable apps. The ML developer community at large has had plenty of time to develop tools for real-world post workflow needs, and for the most part it chose to ignore the needs of post-production and focus instead on what happens in-camera. Of course that's their prerogative, but to then turn around and get their panties in a bunch about the only app which is actually designed with real-world needs in mind, only because the developer chooses to charge money for it, seems petty and childish. Yes, I understand the GPL accusations levied against Thomas, but they only came up the moment he decided to charge money and never once were they brought up for the entire year that RAWMagic was a free product.

The central point that the majority of you guys seem to miss is that RAWMagic has made your work more meaningful because end-users aren't required to jump through difficult obstacles in order to benefit from ML raw video. It's as if Henry Ford would have been upset about paved roads being constructed.

If you could only stop for a second and look at the big picture, you would see that this benefits everyone involved. A successful RAWMagic is consonant with a successful ML, it's a win-win for everyone involved.

I think that Thomas is being demonized for all of the wrong reasons, I also think that there is a not-so-subtle insinuation that a large portion of RAWMagic is ripped off from the pre-existing command-line apps. This doesn't seem to be the case, the code in question only applies to the vertical-stripe correction algorithm which in turn only applies to the 5DmkIII. While I understand that GPL terms are valid regardless of how much or how little code is used, I think it's also important for all participants in this discussion to understand that 99% of RAWMagic is proprietary and non-derivative code created solely by Thomas, and that his app goes well beyond being a mere "GUI wrapper."

Ultimately, if you decide to lock the RAWMagic thread or ban Thomas, you have the full right to do so, but IMHO it would only punish your OS X end users and push them to look elsewhere for their raw video needs (i.e. Blackmagic).

3

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: not getting 1920x1080

« on: September 15, 2014, 07:07:46 AM »

There are so many factors that could be causing this that it's very difficult to diagnose without more info. I would check your settings in ML, including your aspect ratio, and the camera settings as well.

4

General Chat / Will ML save the 7DmkII?

« on: September 11, 2014, 07:08:51 PM »

The specs have been confirmed, and aside from 60fps at 1080p, this seems like same-old same-old from Canon.

http://www.canonrumors.com/2014/09/canon-eos-7d-mark-ii-specifications-confirmed/

I hope that ML will unlock some unexpected features from this camera once the developers can get their hands on it.

5

Raw Video / Re: Newbie question / decision help

« on: September 10, 2014, 10:09:24 AM »

7D ISO leaves a lot to be desired IMHO. Recording at ISO 800 results in some stuck pixels while anything higher is too noisy for my taste (and more stuck pixels).

There is a point where it might make more sense to look into a different camera system if raw video is one of your critical needs. The Blackmagic Pocket camera shoots excellent raw video, very comparable to what the 5D3 gets, for a fraction of the price. Adding a Speedbooster EF adapter brings the crop factor in line with an APS-C sensor.

While I still feel that the 5D3 ML raw offers a compelling set of features not found anywhere else (full frame, high ISO, reliable), the other Canon DSLR's require too many compromises IMHO compared to what is obtainable with a Blackmagic Pocket.

Just my $.02

6

Raw Video / Re: EOSHD 5D Mark III Raw Shooters Guide

« on: August 29, 2014, 02:17:14 AM »

Oops....damn auto-correct. Yes, he is not a liar as far as I know.

7

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: from raw to 4k

« on: August 27, 2014, 08:16:06 PM »

"So how do you get 2k-ish footage in crop mode?"

Read the instructions? 

8

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: from raw to 4k

« on: August 26, 2014, 11:37:49 PM »

You can get 2K-ish footage by using Crop Mode. IMHO not worth the hassle that crop mode brings for just a wee bit more resolution.

If you want true 4K, get yourself a Blackmagic or a GH4, however IMHO 4K is not practical and will not be practical for at least another couple of years. No point in releasing 4K footage if nobody can watch it, and if your film is going wide theatrical...well, in that case you shouldn't be shooting it on a hacked camera in the first place.

Having said that, even the Alexa is not 4K, and most of the films that you see in theaters shot on the Alexa were uprezzed up to 4K in post (for no apparent reason).

9

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: from raw to 4k

« on: August 26, 2014, 07:38:58 PM »

Understanding that:

1. Uprezzing will soften your final image, and you're effectively cheating by creating a resolution that is largely made up of interpolated pixels.

2. Most if not all people who watch your work will not be able to play it back at 4K resolution, nor will their monitors display it as such.

3. Most digital projectors in film festivals are only 2K, and they will do a reasonably decent job at uprezzing your 1080p footage.


Your best option for exporting to 4K from 1080p footage IMHO would be to use Resolve 11. Resolve upscales with the best of them, and it's quite fast at doing so, particularly if you have a good GPU.

P.S.

I feel like I should add that ML raw can't do 4K natively. The cards and the CPU are simply not fast enough to get you anything more than maybe a handful of frames at that resolution (using Crop Mode).

10

Raw Video / Re: EOSHD 5D Mark III Raw Shooters Guide

« on: August 22, 2014, 08:47:09 AM »

I dont know if this EOSHD guy is a lier or something like that, I do not want to judge too soon but I am very upset ´cause  I bought this on August 19, through Paypal and then i received the link for download it and i cant download, something is wrong with his service, then i send several messages, facebook messages, email, about 7 messages so far i can get any response or traces of life of this Andrew Reid guy, apparently is lost in the jungle or the earth swallowed him, meantime , I need to keep doing my job. I am very disappointed.

Andrew is not a liar, an insufferably self absorbed a-hole perhaps, but I don't think he's out to rip anyone off. He's probably busy somewhere, so keep sending him e-mails and I'm sure he'll rectify the situation soon.

11

Duplicate Questions / Re: Red and blue dots.

« on: August 20, 2014, 09:08:14 AM »

http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=6658.0

12

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: How to post process raw files

« on: August 20, 2014, 01:28:58 AM »

If you really get down to it Autodesk Smoke is the Best Super app going , leave Resolve in the dust.

If I had just spent $3500 on Smoke, I'd be telling myself the same thing!   

13

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: How to post process raw files

« on: August 20, 2014, 01:26:58 AM »

I disagree, ACR is the only way to get the best and most acute  results .

I'm often amazed at how many times people are willing to go through a much more time consuming and not particularly efficient methodology to gain an imperceptible improvement that pretty much anyone including professionals can not discern. ACR might have a slight edge in dealing with DNG files, but I assure you that in the end, it doesn't matter nearly as much as having an efficient and speedy way to deal with the footage. Resolve is absolutely capable of getting you professional results which are just as good if not better than ACR, while providing a workflow which is designed specifically for video.

I have never had any issues with RAWMagic generated CDNG in Resolve, they have worked brilliantly since the beginning (been using it for over a year now) and AE can't hold a candle to Resolve when it comes to how quickly I can get from a flat look to a well balanced Best Light pass.

Anyone who works professionally with video will concur that trying to process and grade in AE is a frustrating experience at best. Nonetheless, I understand that some people value that very subjective higher image quality far more than their time.

At some point in the future, ACR will be rewritten and receive proper integration in Premiere Pro and Speedgrade, and I'll be happy to revisit it when that time comes, but until then my life is far too valuable to spend it staring an a slow render progress bar!

14

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: How to post process raw files

« on: August 19, 2014, 07:09:32 PM »

Easier to just change the settings in ACR.

In the long run, ACR is not a good solution. Processing raw in AfterEffects is incredibly slow and cumbersome. The app was not designed for that purpose (much like Lightroom). Resolve on the other hand is very powerful, fast, and best of all free.

15

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: How to post process raw files

« on: August 19, 2014, 05:57:21 PM »

quick question.. How do you get the washed out/raw  LOOK out of the camera? It seems to be auto colored in CameraRaw in After Effects.

Use Resolve 

16

Raw Video / Re: New to RAW and having difficulty - PLEASE HELP!

« on: August 18, 2014, 07:28:06 AM »

  I have attached a pic below and would really appreciate someones help in telling me where the heck I went wrong!

It is possible you're accidentally shooting in Dual ISO mode? I don't think RAWMagic is the issue here, I think there is some exposure issue for sure, but that is what is leading me to believe you might be accidentally shooting in Dual ISO.

17

General Chat / New not-so-kind article on shooting ML raw in professional settings

« on: August 14, 2014, 06:10:13 PM »

Just thought this might be an interesting read for people interested in shooting in ML raw in more demanding settings.

http://www.cinema5d.com/consider-this-before-you-shoot-raw-on-a-canon-5d-mark-iii/

I assume Sebastian Wöber hangs out here, perhaps he can chime in with some additional input. I find the article to bring up some very good points, although I don't know if I agree with the assessment that shooting in raw added as much as 4 days to the shoot.

18

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: MlRawViewer 1.1.7 (RAW/MLV/CDNG viewer/converter, Linux/Mac/Win)

« on: August 13, 2014, 07:50:59 AM »

Thank you for continuing work on MLRawViewer and consistently pushing to add new features. Perhaps I'm alone in the following request, but if I'm not I hope others can chime in.

As MLRawViewer has continued to expand its functionality and options, IMHO it has also become somewhat challenging to use without referring to the text instructions for key shortcuts and the meaning of the various icons.

Is it perhaps time that MLRawViewer gain a proper GUI with an actual file browser, and easy to use checkboxes for the various options? I'm just raising the question because as much as I appreciate all of the work that has gone into it, I find myself still somewhat intimidated by its usage as anything other than an easy way to playback my footage.

I hope that you don't find this request insulting or improper, I really think MLRawViewer is a fantastic little app, but as much as I enjoy alternative UI's for some things (Red Giant products for example), I find myself wishing that MLRawViewer would move toward the type of GUI standards that ultimately just work.

19

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: NEW DAVINCI RESOLVE 11. COLOR + EDITING TOOLS.

« on: August 12, 2014, 06:52:59 PM »

For end to end in Resolve for raw what point is BMD Film, 11 offers much more raw control compared to 10. Or does BMD Film help with all the 3D LUT ***kery masquarading as grading going on. Going to log curve of some sort for grading outside of Resolve fair enough.

What is really truly needed is a correct Input transform in Resolve for the ML raw data. Unfortunately when it comes to ML raw, Resolve is really just guessing and the best we can do is feed it the next best thing which is BMD Film, but it's not truly the best setting since it's designed for the BMD cameras which obviously have different sensors and different ways to process color.

Unfortunately (and here I get myself in trouble again) this is what happens when there  is so much emphasis being put on how to squeeze every little capability in-camera, but not much as to what happens once the data leaves the camera. I wish I had knowledge on how to create the correct Input profile, and connect with Blackmagic to get them to implement it into Resolve. Unfortunately I barely understand it as a user, and my mental resources are pretty much all tapped out by the skill set that I require to make a living.

BMD works for me in the meantime, so this is just to answer your question.

20

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: NEW DAVINCI RESOLVE 11. COLOR + EDITING TOOLS.

« on: August 11, 2014, 06:29:23 PM »

Just for the record, if you get this, it should give you what you need:

DeckLink Mini Monitor

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/decklink/models

For $150, it's a pretty affordable way use a monitor for video playback only in Resolve. The HDMI is 10bit, but unfortunately the large majority of monitors are probably restricted to 8bit. Nonetheless, it's probably the cheapest and easiest way to assign the video playback to a specific monitor while using the other computer monitor as the Resolve GUI.

21

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: Urgent : ps file missing!

« on: August 11, 2014, 04:25:24 AM »

I have other shots from the same day as well and i have already converted them to cdng files using RAW magic lite! if you take a closer look at the screenshot you will see that the .RAW files are 0KBs. So when i drag and drop them to the RAW magic it doesn't recognize any of the files...
Any other ideas?

Good question. Not sure. Either you should contact the main ML guys directly, or else try contacting Thomas who created the RAWMagic app to see if he might have a solution.

22

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: Urgent : ps file missing!

« on: August 11, 2014, 04:24:04 AM »

Just to clarify for my own interests as I am on 5d2 and exfat is not an option; does the use (and necessary purchase) of RAWMagic prevent you from having to merge in order to convert or is there any other secret sauce unknown to me?

RAWMagic understands segmented files and deals with them automatically without any need to pre-merge into a single file. I don't know how other ML post processing files deal with segmented files, but since I've used RAWMagic (over a year now) I've never once had to pre-merge segments.

23

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: GPU/CUDA acceleration

« on: August 10, 2014, 08:30:31 PM »

Thanks for all this, I know Resolve is so much faster but coming from photography background I love flexibility and all various tweaks that you can run under ACR. Very essential for my workflow as I basically grade the files straight at the beginning. I leave only minor color and contrast tweaks to unify the final footage.

Looks I will have to keep my computer render footage overnight for any future filming. Shame really.

Why don't you give Resolve 11 a try before deciding that you're not interested in working with it? The new version gives you a great deal of tweaking at the raw stage that might get you closer to where you need to be than you realize. I am consistently amazed at how little people seem to value time, but the reality is that if you use a post workflow that is insanely slow, it will make you want to use raw and shoot footage less.

24

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: NEW DAVINCI RESOLVE 11. COLOR + EDITING TOOLS.

« on: August 10, 2014, 08:25:50 PM »

Hi,
Another option perhaps (do not tested with resolve) for ipad user, is a little app called twomonusb which allow you to use your ipad as a second or third monitor. I use it with premiere and ae and it´s working very well...it´s usb.

Resolve won't recognize it as a playback monitor. Resolve is coded to output a full image on an actual video HDMI/SGI interface, not to an iPad using USB.

If one wants to use 1 monitor as the GUI monitor, and the 2nd monitor as a full screen playback window, they need to get themselves a Video interface (ideally from Blackmagic so there are the least amount of issues).

25

Raw Video Postprocessing / Re: Urgent : ps file missing!

« on: August 10, 2014, 08:20:25 PM »

No...there's no need to merge before conversion.

All your data is there, these are simply segmented files because your camera/card was not set up as an ExFAT format which would have allowed you longer than 4Gb takes.

First of all, in the future please go back and learn how to use new tools instead of diving into it head first without knowing some of the very basics of using ML raw (and yes, this is a pretty basic thing).

Secondly, since you're on the Mac, get yourself RAWMagic from the App store and use that to convert everything to CDNG. All you need to do is drag and drop all your files into the RAWMagic window and the app will know exactly what to do from  there on out. It will convert all your segmented files into continuous CDNG files that you can use in your favorite app to either edit with or convert to other formats like ProRes.